8/4/14

Dharma Talk, July 28, 2014: Causes and Conditions

A good evening to you all, it’s July 28, 2014 our regular Monday night
class and hello to all especially to those who are listening by way of the Internet.
Today’s class is going to be a little bit different class and we’re going to go
through a potpourri. I kind of worked you quite a bit with the Hua Tou so I
want to kind of go back to basics and cycle it through so that you're not
always filled with basic things and you're not always filled with the more
advanced notions of the practice. That way, there's a little bit of something
for everyone.

The class I want to present to you today has to do with Causes and Conditions.
This is a very important aspect of our practice and it's one that if we do not
understand causes and conditions, it’s difficult for us to practice and it's
not going to be easy to be a human being. The idea of causes and conditions
takes into account many different aspects of the practice where I can go in
very deep into it, but I don't want to do that today. I want to do it on a very
personal level, a very basic level but nevertheless true to our practice itself.

The idea of causes and conditions means that for every condition that
one sees, there is a corresponding cause to it; and that condition may then
become a cause for something else; either a perpetuation of the same condition
or a new one depending on the circumstances. So if we look at things in this
way, it kind of links it all together. Everything is connected; which is really
some of the basic premises of Buddhist thought [that we are all connected by
mind]. This is really the basic understanding of the Huayan School, what they
refer to as Indra’s Net
- this net that is composed of many mirrors reflecting everything within the other
mirrors.

As we look at things in this way, we have this connection with things and
we find that there are dependent causes and conditions on things. They are not
necessarily [in their way] permanent because we also understand that all things
are impermanent so they are constantly changing. That impermanence that we use
is really at the cornerstone of the hope of the Buddhist practice because if
things were static, if things were just to be the way they are, then there
would be no practice; there would be nothing to practice for. But the fact that
we can use our understanding of causes and conditions to make changes, really
gives us faith in the practice and that we understand via this impermanence
that this mind-ground can be manipulated,
and the appearances within the mind-ground can change in accordance with what
we put in there.

The Chinese have a saying that “If you plan a melon seed, you’ll get a
melon plant.” It is just saying that these things are just natural; it’s more
like kind of country-farm type of wisdom. But that farm-wisdom is really
tapping in because farmers understand how nature works. They understand seasons;
they understand changes; they understand that there are ups and downs in the
cycle. So they are more attuned with seeing these kinds of changes and they’re
used to that. So when we look at things, we should look at them from a natural
viewpoint.

I often use this example in our practice and it is to see things as if
it was a weather pattern, where you have high-pressure points and low-pressure.
In between, you have a lot of dynamic movement of the energy because the fact
that the high-pressure wants to equalize with the low-pressure and move in
those areas to equalize everything. When we see the world in this way, then we
understand these causes and conditions. I don't think any of us ever looked up
at the sky and go “Where did that wind come from?” We’re used to seeing the wind,
and we may not completely understand meteorological causes and conditions, but
we are attuned to that. We’re aware that if we see dark clouds, and lightning,
that there might be water coming down in the form of rain, or hail, or snow. We
understand that. We’re not bedazzled by that for the most part unless it’s something
very unusual in terms of the conditions that we have not seen.

But most of the time, we’re used to seeing the weather as it is. Anybody
who's from Southern California can pretty much know what the weather is going
to be like. We rarely have anything although the other day, there was some
people that were injured by lightning at Venice which is very unusual. But
nevertheless that’s very, very rare. The idea is that things in nature act in a
natural way. They don't act opposing these natural laws. Do these natural laws
mean everything is in this way? It means that within this realm, we understand
these natural laws; but beyond even this realm, then we have other laws.

It's very interesting because before the class, I was exchanging some
e-mails with one of my students from up north and she was talking about Quantum
Mechanics. One of the things that she mentioned is [we were talking about
galaxies], that the galaxies are spiraling. I wrote back to her “on-1-1-1-1-1.”
Now on-1-1-1-1-1, the “one” stands for the swastika, and the swastika is the
nature of things, the way things move. It is not coincidental that is in the
form of a spiral.

And I wrote to her and said, “Yes, galaxies spiraling and all the
galaxies are spiraling together” which the cosmologists have discovered that
the galaxies are actually moving in space in a spiral. So it’s very interesting
because we see from one layer and understand one layer. But even beyond that layer,
we understand another layer; and then looking at the world and seeing it. And
using an even bigger scope to see the world; from using the regular eye, to the
enhanced eye of the microscope or a telescope, and using maybe Dharma-eye or
wisdom-eye and then all of a sudden, expanding out to see.

The scientists are saying that there was a “big bang” and this big bang,
somewhere along the line, so many billion years ago created the universe. But
what was there before that and how many
times has this “bang” gone off? I wrote her something that may seem like
very aloof or a puzzle but I said, “What if all of this [meaning whatever we
perceive as the universe] is occurring in the tear of some sad cosmic clown
that’s crying because the circus shut down?”

When we look at things that way, it's not taking it too lightly. It’s looking
at it going, as the Quantum Physicists say, “outside the box.” Now grant you, I
don't think I can find any Quantum Physicist to agree with my hypothesis. But
nevertheless, what I'm doing is looking at it from the viewpoint way beyond what
we deal with. In the practice of Buddhism, they often use incalculable numbers to enable people to be released from those numbers;
to enable them to no longer be tied to it; to try to count them on their
fingers and to essentially be released from that.

A while back I gave to one of my Dharma brothers a fossil, a trilobite
that’s 600 million years old. I gave him the fossil just to say that this is
our reminder of that fact that this is so old; that everything changes;
everything is moving. And here we are, our human thought that we think is so
important and we have all these different philosophers that we relied on: Kant
and Descartes, Nagarjuna; in so many from different ways deep philosophers. And
our world, here in terms of all of our cumulative philosophical, scientific,
ecclesiastical understandings, are such a small tiny little bit in terms of
what one would call time – this time-space continuum. One of the things that
Nagarjuna did, from the Madhyamaca School and he did it very well, was refute
the notion of time and space.

So Buddhism is kind of a funny thing because it doesn't give you
anything to hang your hat on. And Chan is probably the best at doing that - taking
it all away from you, and giving it back to you, but giving it back in its
proper order and importance in terms of looking at it. All of these we look at
causes and conditions in a very important way. The idea of causes and conditions
is, in let's say, our little small blip of time that's here, the things that
happen to us, we think they're very, very important and that these things are
earth-shattering to us.

Today I wrote a long question to one of my friends, a historian. He
said, “I’m not in the mood to answer you today because I got into an accident.
The policeman gave me a ticket and said it was my fault but it was the other
people’s fault.” So I said, “No problem! At least you didn't get hurt. It
could've been a lot worse; you could've been injured in the accident but you
weren’t, and all these things will pass.” I’m looking at her and reminding her
of her practice; to look at the things in this way so that we see things from a
perspective way. Otherwise, what happens is we hold on to these things so much
that they affect us a lot and we cannot function.

Sometimes what we do is we make a choice not to do anything; it's as if
we tilt out. Have any of you ever done that in your life, fail to make a
choice? Actually it's worse than making a choice; in fact it’s a choice, “I
choose not to make a choice” but it generally doesn't work out very well. Most of
the time, it's better to deal with the issue than to just let it fester there,
but we have a fear because of self and so we don't want to make those kinds of
choices a lot of times. We don’t want to deal with it but causes and conditions
are there.

And the funny thing about that is we know we’re going to get hit with it.
We know we’re going to get whacked with causes and conditions because we’re not
doing anything about it. It can be as mundane as not fixing a door and then the
door falls off its hinges and we go, “Why did it have to happen?” It’s because we
didn't fix it; that's what happened. Whatever it is; whether it’s paying a bill,
or not paying attention to people, all sorts of things in terms of the way we
don't take care of. When we don't take care of them, we mess things up because
we’re not mindful that “causes and conditions never fail.” They never fail; they
are always connected in this way.

But somehow we think that we’re immune from it, or we just don't want to
deal with it and then we’re going to take the bigger hit later. And lo and
behold, there's a bigger hit that we get hit with. It makes it even worse; you
go to the doctor, “Why didn’t you take care of this earlier?” I have people
that I know that won’t go to a doctor. I have one person I know that has
cancer. She does not want to go to a doctor because she does not want to know
she has cancer (even though she knows she has cancer).

It's a very funny thing about us in terms of how we respond to things. We
don't see things very, very clearly. When we see things from the idea of causes
and conditions, it protects us. This one symbol, the swastika, when it is
left-facing, it stands for armor – protection. This one symbol is that everything
is always in motion, moving, but everything is moving in balance, constantly moving.
The Chinese they had their Tai Chi symbol that was also moving constantly;
moving from the Yin and the Yang in the same way as the swastika is moving in a
very delicate balance.

So the things that happen to us, when we see them, we accept them. A lot
of times it is very, very difficult for us to accept it. We want to blame it on
other people; we want to make it look like we were not as irresponsible as we
were, or mindless, or not mindful in terms of what was happening. We don't want
that ego to be harmed; and as a result of that, what happens is we blame it on
others, or we blame it on an object; or worse yet, we blame it on God, “God, why
have you forsaken me? Not now, God!” We never take responsibility for it. But
if we do, there's hope there. Causes and conditions is actually not a negative
thing. It's wonderful because in causes and conditions, we see the karma that’s
forming. We know exactly what is going to happen. We know where we're going
with all this.

It's a very interesting thing. The Chinese have some very good
fortunetellers. Sometimes they’re real scary. I mean they are good; they can
tell you things that would surprise you. But what they read is the direction
and where you're going. Somehow they’re able to discern the direction where you’re
going. If you want to know what your future is, it's very easy to know that. I
can tell you right now how to tell your future - where have you been and what
direction are you going.

For instance, if you're a heavy smoker, you're going to the hospital. You're
going to be in front of a doctor to tell you, “You have lung cancer.” It is
very simple. If you use your credit cards without any control, you will be
broke. If you are constantly angry, you're going to end up without friends. If
you're helpful to people, people in turn will like you; people will trust you. That’s
the other side, is that we have control; we have a choice over things.

Fortunetellers cannot see that; that is not their realm. Their realm is
telling people things and the bad thing about fortune tellers is that they bind
you into your future. That's why in some religions they really pooh-pooh
fortunetellers because they can make you believe that you have no choice out of
it, but you do have a choice. All they're doing is reading the direction in where
you're going. But you have a choice to change that. Some of these little things
and habits that we do are very mundane. Now, if they belong to your husband,
they’ll probably drive you crazy with these little habits; and your little habits
are picking on these little habits. And so it goes; it could be vice-a-versa -
husband versus the wife.

But the beauty of Buddhism, the beauty of Chan is seeing clearly -
that's the way it is. And as we look at things, we see the things in a way where
we understand that we can utilize our mind in a very powerful way. You cannot
believe how strong mind can be at times where we can use it in such a positive
way to help others. We can use this beautiful tool for us to change things.

It can work the other way too. I once had a client who was so upset. She
was working for the school as a schoolteacher and there was this vice-principal
who would come in and check out her class on a regular basis; a really petty
tyrant. After one class, she kind of berated the teacher and as she was leaving,
the teacher was so incredibly angry; she just said, “I just wish that she would
break her leg!” And the next moment you can hear from the outside “Ooouch!!!” Lo
and behold, she broke her leg.

Can everybody do this? No. Should anybody do this? No. I'm not
advocating that for you guys to do some kind of focusing to harm somebody. The
point of this is that there was instant karma there. That vice-principal was
not mindful of her being a petty tyrant. How many people had she done this to?
How many people wished that she had broken her leg, or done something? And the
focus of all of that information created an instant karma which caused her to
finally break her leg. Does it always work that way? No, but oftentimes it's
cumulative. When we’re not mindful to those things, it's very difficult for us
to navigate in this world. If we’re attuned to causes and conditions, it helps
us see things around us because we are attuned via our heart and seeing the
people around us and seeing how they act.

Today I was in mediation and there was a gentleman there that was an
assistant to my client, a manager, and he was a very angry fellow; very
disagreeable. Everything that you would say, he would mock; everything that you
would do and you could tell. He hated attorneys for the status that they have,
the money that they make, or whatever it is. And he kind of hated everybody and
I felt really sorry for him because what he really needed to do was change his
lifestyle - I could tell that he's a drinker. Drinking affects the liver, liver
is the organ for anger and so he was very angry because of that. He just snaps
like that and he created this little cesspool around him that if anybody got
close to him would smell.

It is very, very sad to see somebody that way. You reverse to compassion
and you look at the person instead of trying to be angry; (because it's very
easy that you would want to put your two thumbs together and your fingers and
wrap them around his neck). He was really good at making people aggravated. He
was a black belt in that. But you have to let it go because you realize that the
more you buck heads and the more you do things like this, it was going to cause
harm.

So you see the situation and you try to harmonize with it. And there's
really nothing I could have said or done in that meeting that would have made
the situation better; nothing! I mean this person was that disagreeable; if I
said “blue, he would have said “red” just to say red. So I used my little
insight not to make the situation worse so I did not choke him out, nor did I
say anything to him like “I want to choke you out.” You let it go. You try to
do that so that you can mitigate your karma, because it’s real easy to say
something or do something that you’ll regret later. If you use your compassion,
it helps and you’re mindful of causes and conditions. Again, this is using your
idea of causes and conditions to see clearly that this is not the proper
conduct for you to engage.

Often the situation is where we see the other person, but we don't see
us as a player in that particular situation. And as a result of that, we can
remove ourselves from the situation, and then become a judge of the situation
rather than a player within it. But the difference as a player within that
environment is that we know the rules. We know the long-range rules of how to
act in a particular situation so it makes it easy for us to play that game. And
ultimately, we will win; not a “self” win but a win for harmony, a win for
compassion. It's not easy to have faith in that. I'm sure all of you at some
point in time in your life have had a petty tyrant in your life, right? Sometimes
that just happens and when you have somebody like that, it's really hard.

Once this lady came to Master Sheng Yen telling him about her husband
who was is type of a person, a petty tyrant, and he was saying, “That is such
good news; that’s great! You're so lucky to have a person like that!”

And she said, “What are you talking about, did you even listen to
anything I said? He’s so mean to me; he’s always berating me! He’s doing this,
he’s doing that!”

Shifu said, “Yes, he makes you able to practice every single day. He is
a reminder of your practice! That’s good! You can change things!”

This is the way we do things. Some people will see it as half-empty you
know, but we see it is half-full. We see those situations as an opportunity for
change; an opportunity to be dynamic to move the situation. Sometimes you
cannot do anything about the petty tyrant, but you are able to do something
about your own impressions and you can change there. Now if this person is very
harmful or very violent to you, then of course, you should not stay with that
person. You should use your wisdom and you try to make it the best you can.

It's very funny because as people get older, some people their anger
amplifies; some people their love amplifies. They become more of what they were
in their life; but to some who were always angry, they become crotchety old man
or crotchety old women. Others become loving elderly people. They’re really
truly blessed in terms of that. It all starts with “now.” A lot of you are relatively young [in relative to some of the
old geezers in this place], but you start [now]
to develop those good habits [now]
so that you don't create a disharmony in your life. You’re mindful of causes
and conditions.

In this way as you operate in your life, you are a practitioner. It’s
very incredible because that kind of an approach to life produces wisdom; very
very deep wisdom. Not just a little bitty wisdom but deep Buddhism,Prajnaparamita
wisdom because you're now investigating how mind works. You're now
investigating that causes and conditions. You can prognosticate the
potentialities of any given scenario that arises around you.

There are times when I am in my office and people have given me their
scenario of them and say “What should I do?” And I just stop for a moment. To
them they probably look like the machine shut down because I don't have an
expression on my face and I’m just looking forward, and sometimes I’ll tell
them that I'm processing the information. But what I'm doing is running it
through a myriad of scenarios: if you do this, this happens; if you do this,
this happens; if you do this, this happens; until I finally get to a point
where I determine which is likely the best outcome [given the situation].

And I'll tell them you have all these alternatives and then there's this
one; it's up to you to make the decision. But I'm looking at what the
potentiality is of what's going to happen. Fortunetelling? No, not really; wisdom-teller
- looking at things through wisdom. They go, “How do you know they’ll happen
that way?” And it's easy; it's easy to see the things like that because you
understand how the world works.

One of my secretary had a friend; actually she used to be one of my
former secretary, and her grandmother died. She said, “Oh, you'll never guess
what happened to this person.”

And I said, “Her grandfather died of a heart attack.”

And she said, “That’s scary; that’s scary. How did you know that?” How
did you know that her grandfather died of a heart attack?”

It is very easy because the two of them were old lovebirds; and when the
one went, the other one lost the desire to live. So there was a very high probability
that that was what she was going to tell me about. And you feel those things
from that. Does that mean I'm prescient? No, you just use wisdom. I could've
been wrong, but the probabilities were with me, in terms of that situation, in
terms of looking at it. Does that make me wise? Not really, but it helps me
make wise decisions. And as you begin to look at things, you see the world in
this way. It's possible to see the potentialities that are going to happen.

My mom was very good at this; she is very good. I remember her telling
my sister “Your friends, or your so-called friends, they're going to do this,
and this, and this, and this, and this, and this.” And my sister went “No!!! No!!!”
She was really saying “No, don't tell me because I know you're going to be
right,” which she was too stubborn to admit it. And sure enough, that's what
happened. But my mom was only reading the tendencies of the people; she could
feel the people - the interaction between all of my sister’s friends and how
they acted when they came to the house. And that was enough for her to be able to
tap in to that.

Is that necessary? No, it's not necessary; but what’s more necessary is to
know what you're going to do in any given situation. You may not be able to control
factors around you, but you can control what you are manifesting - mindful of
causes and conditions - of what you say, of what you do, of what you think. All
of these things are critical in terms of being a practitioner. When we’re
mindful of that, when we’re respectful of how the world works, we know that all
of these things are causes and conditions and that they don't fail.

Then what seeds are you planting? Are you planting good seeds or are you
planting bad seeds? So you’re really, really mindful; you cultivate the mind-field. You cultivate the mind-field just like a
farmer cultivates his crops, making sure that the weeds don’t come out of the field,
and nurturing only the good plants; acts only the good acts, the good thoughts,
the good speech. So we are very mindful of all these things. And when we can do
it in the right way, it changes us; we really begin to get transformed.

When I was a young boy, like in my 20s, I wouldn’t have wanted to be
around me. I was very impatient, opinionated, egotistical kid. And little by
little as you get older, you begin to see things; you begin to see yourself in
different scenarios; and little by little, you change. Have I changed completely?
No, I’m just an opinionated, egotistical old guy; but I’m trying. And the
difference is that I'm aware of it; I'm trying to work on my shortcomings. I
really try to do that. And if we’re not doing that, we’re just threading water
here. But the more we practice, the more we do things, the more we find out
that there are different avenues, different ways that we can use this body for
the benefit of others; and we’re not so attached to our problems: whether our
car got dented, or somebody blamed us to do that, or whatever it is that comes
up and in our life that causes us vexations.

We have to be very mindful about that; otherwise, we end up just
carrying around this heavy load, like another rock that we put in the sack we
carry around that defines us. That’s what I told my friend, the one that had
the accident, “Don't let this situation define you. Don’t let any moment like
that define you.” What I mean by “define you” is how you react to it in a
selfish way where you're caring for your ego, or you’re caring for this, you’re
caring for that, so that you create a very negative aspect to it; you’re defined
by your negativity that's there.

Quite to the contrary, try to switch it around; try to be positive in
your life. If I could only do this all the time, my life would be better and
the life around me would be better. But I’m a practitioner like you; I try hard.
I try hard to do the things in the right way. This is the way we are. If you
see someone before you who claims that they're a Saint or a full-blown Bodhisattva,
then I suggest you really look for another teacher because even the greatest of
the Masters I've read from always think that they’re deficient in some way, and
we are. We all are; we all have something that we can improve upon and we try.

That's the difference; we’re aware but we try because of causes and conditions.
We want to create such positive causes and conditions around us that it changes
and illuminates the mind-field around us. It makes people want come close to us
because they trust us to confide in us their problems and their concern. And as
long as they’re working towards trying to resolve issues, that’s good. If they
come, like what Master Sheng Yen used to say, just to dump garbage in front of
you, then it's doesn't help. But if they come with a sincere interest in
wanting to be helped, and they just need some light of wisdom, then you give them
that time to help them.

You come here seeking wisdom, this is wisdom is seeking wisdom. So what
I give you is the causes and conditions that you're seeking; the condition is a
Dharma talk of what I think may be helpful to you. As you look at this and you
see how it can change your environment, that's what this is all about -changing
the environment around you.

Shifu used say uplifting humanity and taking care of our environment:
one is ecological, but it’s also emotional, and psychological, and supporting
of others in what they need. In doing so, we burn our “selves” up; we are not
creating karma for our actions [if it's a negative karma], nor do we seek a positive
karma. We just simply do; we create that kind of function of a Bodhisattva.
That kind of function enables us to see clearly; to use our wisdom in the right
way.

And that's the most important part of our practice; is what we do with
it when we get off of our cushion, or read our books, or whatever we're doing,
is what we do with it. Do we do
recitations for ourselves or do we do recitation to transfer merit to others? This
is one practice. To me, I always do recitation for others and I continually
increase the people that are within that sphere of recitation. Sometimes, the
people that I think needed an extra boost, I'll try to use my mind and my heart
to give them an extra boost of recitation so that perhaps their environment
around them may become a little bit lighter. I'm mindful that causes and
conditions never fail. Although I cannot completely alleviate that person's karma,
I might be able to mitigate it a little bit. Not bad; it’s worth the effort; it's
worth the time to do that.

So this is my talk on Causes and Conditions from the viewpoint of just
practice and getting into any theoretical or doctrinal parts of this. It’s just
simply how out-of-the-box using it today, tomorrow, next week, it's going to
change your life. It's going to do good for you and for others around you. And
even if everything else at some point of what I’m talking about was disproved,
it can't hurt to practice in this way because it could only help others. Any questions?